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Stinger8
The undisputed fan favorite of World Wrestling Tensions, Stinger8 became the definition of acheivement in WWT. He was the first ever Triple Crown Champion, the only person to hold both WWT Tag-Team titles by himself, the first ever Midway Champion, the longest reigning WWT World Heavyweight Champion, and the man who officially ended the war with UBW by forcing the original face of WWT Element X to tap out. Stinger is known for having feuds with countless superstars including X, Wolfpac, Truth, and Hassan. Early Life Stinger was born Ramadan Amir Hassan in Kabul, Afghanistan on October 9th, 1987. His father was a high ranking member of the Taliban, and often beat his wife and three children. Eventually, Stinger's mother secretly met up with officials at the U.S. embassy and offered to give them insider information on high ranking Taliban officials in exchange for letting her and her children go and live in America. After a few weeks they contacted her and told her they accepted her offer. Unfortunately, a Taliban supporter saw the meeting, and quickly informed Stinger's father. He pulled Stinger's older brother Asef and younger sister A'ishah out of their religious classes and kept them with him. He then went for Stinger, who was home sick, but the mother got there first. She took Stinger and they were sent to America. After arriving in New York City, the pair settled in Buffalo. It was there that the 6 year old Ramadan (renamed Ryan for his safety and also so he'd fit in better at school) fell in love with pro wrestling. He watched WWF Monday Night Raw and/or WCW Monday Nitro every week, and went to see the local Indy promotion "Buffalo City Wrestling" (or BCW) as often as he could. He started training at the age of 13, and quickly became one of the better in-ring competitors in the area. He also became one of the the better talkers, he could get fans on the edge of their seats with his promos. At the age of 16, he joined BCW, becoming their heavyweight championship and proceeding to hold it for over three years. Ryan Hassan, became the biggest draw in BCW's history over his 5 year plus career there. He was also very loyal to the promotion, turning down WWE and TNA offers on a regular basis. It seemed that he would never leave BCW, until he got a call from a former-BCW co-worker and opponent, Matt Gargan.... Career in WWT One night after returning from an event in Rochester, Stinger received a call. He would describe the call in an interview years later: "It was like 3 in the morning. I was exhausted and all of a sudden, my cell goes off. The number looked familiar, so I ran it by Truth. He checked his own phone, and said it was Gargan. Matt and I weren't exactly friends, since me and Truth had taken basically all the work from him and Mike Booker, so I didn't pick it up. I swear to god I got 8 more calls from the bastard before I picked it up. Gargan said that he and Booker had gotten some funds because of Booker's connections and that they were starting a new promotion and wanted to talk to me about joining. I wasn't interested at all, but I figured hey, free meal! So I met him and Booker for lunch the next day. He said he could only sign 10 people, and that he'd already signed two. It was Cassius Creed and Mike Manseau. I had heard of both and knew that they were hardcore wrestlers, and so I skeptically asked what kind of promotion he was starting. He told me it was going to be called Terror World Wrestling and that it was going to be the most hardcore promotion on the planet. I stared at him thinking "Are you batshit insane????". I told him I didnt think his promotion was for me. He said that he had already been in talks with Truth, and that he was on board with joining. I still didn't want to leave BCW, and so again I refused. Booker then leaned over and said that BCW was thinking of letting me go, because they felt I was getting too big. He also said that this "TWW" would be based in Buffalo, so it wasn't like I'd be abandoning the area. So I signed on, lost the BCW Heavyweight title to Keynon "K-Killa" Tyson, and went to Albany to get ready for TWW's first show. Mike Booker had one simple rule for TWW: No using real names. Booker didn't want his guys building up a fan base in TWW and then leaving and taking the fans with them. He let each wrestler choose their own ring names, but those names would be trademarked by TWW, meaning that if they jumped to another promotion, they couldn't use the ring name there. Ryan chose the name "Stinger8". The origin of the name is unknown. Its known that Ryan's favorite wrestler growing up was Sting, but as far as the 8, no straight answer has been given. Stinger was once asked the origin of the name during an interview in TWW, to which he sarcastically replied "I wanted to be called Stinger, but every time I tried, someone took it. I had to kill 7 other fuckers before I got the name!" Some have speculated the 8 stands for the number of years that had gone by when Stinger had signed with TWW since he started training, but it is unknown for sure. TWW became one of the more brutal promotions on the scene, known for over the top spots such as Mike being run over by a bulldozer from Super Psycho. However, it was also known from some extremely good in-ring work from a few guys that were clearly too talented to be exclusively hardcore wrestlers. TWW soon got a massive following, despite its small roster and territory size. However, while things on the surface were going well, a rift had formed between co-founders Matt Gargan and Mike Booker. Eventually, Booker left and used his law degree to sue Gargan and TWW, bankrupting them both in the process. TWW was about to fold when Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson showed up and partnered with Midway games to purchase the promotion. Figuring that "Terror World Wrestling" wasn't a marketable name, Johnson re-branded the promotion "World Wrestling Tensions" or WWT, and on March 1st, 2009, a behemoth was born. Johnson knew he had one of the most talented rosters in the business, but still wanted more. He released Cassius Creed and Super Psycho (although he would hire Psycho back a month later) and hired "Grandmaster" Lane Dickson and Mark Andrews. At the inaugural WWT show, Stinger and Truth were scheduled to face Element X and Grandmaster Lane for the Tag-Team titles. But Truth showed up drunk and high, and was forced to miss the match by management. Stinger managed to defeat the two anyway by turning them on each other. Later that night, Stinger captured the WWT Midway Championship by again defeating Lane. Throughout the next few months, Stinger established himself as one of the "Big Three" stars in WWT, along with Wolfpac and Element X. Stinger also established an off and on friendship with WWTs biggest star, Element X. The two had a rocky friendship, at one point holding almost all the titles in WWT, and then later having all of them stripped for brawling in public. When X was fired from WWT, Stinger quickly replaced him as WWTs poster boy. While X was trying to sabotage WWT with his new company Stinger was trying to keep WWT together. An 8 month war ensued, culminating in an 8 on 8 Elimination Chamber Tag-Team match. Stinger eliminated Physique early in the match. He also assisted other WWT stars eliminate other UBW wrestlers. Finally, Stinger was facing Element X (who was now using his real name of Jason Calaway) one on one. The two fought for 15 minutes before Stinger finally locked in his Dragon Sleeper on X, who tapped out, giving WWT the victory. After the war with UBW ended, Stinger would go on to dominate WWT in their new home. He held the WWT WHC for 11 of the next 13 months. During this span, he took place in the highest rated match in WWT history when he defeated Hassan for the WWT WHC at Union 2010. When WWT went on hiatus in May 2011, Stinger issued statements to the press, blaming Eric Bischoff for running WWT into the ground. He also called Kurt Angle a coward for abandoning WWT when it started to go downhill. Both Bischoff and Angle openly bashed Stinger at numerous events across the country. Angle called Stinger "overrated" and "a bitch" while Bischoff claimed "Stinger is the most self-righteous son of a bitch I ever met. He beleived that everything he suggested was good, while anything management suggested was bad." Yet, very few wrestlers took Bischoff and Angle's side. When WWT returned from Hiatus in July 2011, Stinger returned and was named the new CEO. He had one final match against Mark Andrews at WWT: Rush! #1. Stinger won this final match and then assumed his duties as CEO. At the press conference for Wargames 2012, Stinger was asked to compare being a wrestler to being an executive, he responded by saying "The major difference is that when you are a wrestler, you are only concerned about yourself. You are only trying to advance your own career. But when you are in control, you have to focus on everyone else and try to find the right people to sell tickets. Its given me a real appreciation for what Dwayne Johnson, Kurt Angle, and even Eric Bischoff went through. Constantly having to hear grown men bitch about not getting enough tv time is very aggravating. But you know what? We are really starting to hit our stride as a company and Im happy to be at the helm of it." WWT thrived under Stinger's leadership, re-establishing itself as the #1 wrestling promotion in the world. WWT had a new face of the company in the highly marketable Brock. Over the next couple of years, Stinger brought back Jason Calaway, Chad Calaway, Brian Christophers, and much more talent from WWT and UBW. Having Stinger (an Arab) as the CEO of the company, when most CEO's are white, greatly helped WWT's PR standing. WWT was perhaps the only wrestling promotion not to be accused of racism, and it changed people's perception of pro-wrestling as a whole. WWT was able to expand in ways previously thought unimaginable. It also made Stinger a Billionaire. While WWT was on hiatus, its stock fell to a penny per share. Stinger used his 8 million dollar contract from TCW to buyout every single share and pay his staff's salaries. Over the next two years, WWT's stock went from $0.01 per share in June 2011 to $144.68 per share in January 2014. It was at this point when Stinger stepped down as CEO and sold all of his shares. Stinger made $144,680,000,000 from his shares despite the fact he only spent 10,000 originally to buy the stock. However, this was not why Stinger stepped down. His older brother Asef, had just brutally attacked Stinger's wife and children, and Stinger was stepping down to face him in a match. Matt Gargan replaced Stinger as CEO. In what was billed as the grudge match of the century, Stinger face off against Hassan in a Hell in a Cell match at New Horizons 2014. Fighting for vengeance for his family, Stinger was expected to decimate Hassan, despite the fact that he hadn't had a match in two and a half years. To the astonishment of the world, Stinger lost to Hassan and was taken to a nearby hospital. He was released from the hospital two hours later, and has not been seen or heard from since. Career in TCW On June 9th, 2011. Triple Crown Wrestling signed Stinger to a lucrative multi-year contract. Ironically, Angle introduced Stinger to the public, and the two seemed to be friendly with each other again. A match was set between Stinger and Jason Calaway to crown the first ever TCW World Heavyweight Championship, which was later changed to Jason Calaway vs Mike Manseau vs Mark Andrews vs Stinger8. It was random changes like this that put Stinger at odds with TCW management. Stinger would later recall "The whole f*ckin creative team would change storylines on a whim just to appease Jason (Calaway). For example, we start to build all this hype for Stinger vs. Jason, then they decide after signing Mike and Mark that they should just chuck those two into the match and see what happens. You cant work and put on good shows in that kind of environment". In early July a rift started to form in the TCW locker room, with half siding with Stinger and half siding with Calaway. Eventually TCW management decided to suspend the two indeffinately, and while this united the locker room, it united it against management and the entire roster went on a strike. After a month, TCW suspended all operations and filed for bankruptcy. While still officially a company, TCW has no roster and has not had a show since July 17th, 2011. Jason Calaway blames Stinger for this, stating "That self-righteous piece of shit brought down that entire promotion just because he wasnt the top dog like he was in WWT. Newsflash jackass, you were only the top guy there because I left!" Stinger responded by saying "If Im such a cancer, why did Jason bend over backwards and beg me to sign with the company? Personally, I think hes butthurt because I was not going to let him control management like he did in WWT. Jason Calaway is an amazing wrestler, but a really shitty booker. With him at the helm, TCW would've folded anyway."